Historically, gaming consoles have been dedicated devices that connect to a monitor and that allow a user to play a game stored on a game cartridge or disc that is inserted into the gaming console. Thus, the games available to a user were provided on gaming modules or optical discs that the user had to purchase and bring home. When a user wanted to play a game, the user had to insert the module or disc into the gaming console. The game would typically automatically start when it was inserted into the console. When the user desired to play a different game, the existing game had to be removed from the gaming console and the new game had to be inserted into the gaming console.
Traditionally, gaming consoles had also been isolated from other devices other than a television monitor. As such, they were not viewed as devices that could be networked.
This changed with the introduction of the Microsoft XBOX® gaming console, which provided network connectivity for the gaming console. To take advantage of this network connectivity, Microsoft introduced a gaming disc known as Microsoft Arcade, which was able to use the network connection on the gaming console to reach a server through the Internet. By communicating with this server, code on the Arcade gaming disc was able to enumerate games that were stored on the server and that could be downloaded to the gaming console. The list of games available on the server was displayed to the user along with games that had previously been downloaded to the gaming device. Thus, in one display, the user saw both games that had been downloaded and games that had yet to be downloaded. By selecting one of the games that had not been downloaded yet, the user was able to download the game onto their gaming device for a fee. This fee was paid through a credit card transaction that required many interactions with the user in order to confirm the purchase.
Although games were downloaded and stored on the gaming device, they could not be viewed or played unless the Arcade disc was running in the gaming console. In addition, the downloaded games were not viewed as independent games by the gaming console but instead were considered content for the Arcade disc.
The discussion above is merely provided for general background information and is not intended to be used as an aid in determining the scope of the claimed subject matter.